


Sixty Messages Later, and She Was in Love

by midnightshon



Series: A Roommate for the Night [3]
Category: Red Velvet (K-pop Band)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-01-11
Packaged: 2019-08-01 10:59:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16283339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightshon/pseuds/midnightshon
Summary: “I would say it over and over again if that would bring you back to me.”





	Sixty Messages Later, and She Was in Love

_Recall how they said everything went black the moment death came to greet you? How you would feel weightless at a certain point until you felt nothing at all and everything was just, puff, gone?_

_Well, they lied._

_Her head felt like it would explode with every flip her car was taking. The ringing inside her head was deafening, as though it was a countdown to the timer, ready to make a full stop with a blast. Nothing would be left behind and this, she was certain, was the fashion death chose to approach her. With a lot of pain, bones crushed, and blood._

 

“I want to learn to live in the world after knowing you without you in it.”

_A stupid smile forced its way to her lips, decorating what was left of her face, in response to that cynical voice._

_That voice... there was no denying the death coming her way. She was going to die, she was sure of that. Because as clichéd as it might be, she had always dreamed of an ideal death where that voice being the last thing she heard before everything went black._

_Two wishes would be granted then. Her hearing that voice for one last time and the owner of that voice living in a world without her in it._

 

\----

 

Do you also lose the ability to read along with the loss of your memory?

 

It was the seventh day after she left the hospital that she wasted sitting all by herself in a strange motel room. A letter, two of its folds had become so fragile from being opened and closed too many times, in hand, she stared at something faraway outside the window.

 

Fifteen minutes had passed since she finished rereading the letter, and for the nth time she convinced herself that no, she did not lose her linguistic skill and no, she had not read the letter wrong. Or at least, that was what she had been telling herself for the sake of her own sanity.

 

What else could she do, really? Her memory was erased clean that day she woke up in the hospital, with no recollection of anything, left with a pair of jeans and a torn shirt they had found her in. The letter, addressed to ‘The 30-year-old Son Seungwan’ it said, she found at the back pocket of her jeans, and she held on to it tight like a life jacket, refusing to let herself drown in the sea of confusion for far too long.

 

She had read the letter more often than she could remember having her meal. It was that often to the point she could memorize everything written, every paragraph, every sentence, down to every question and exclamation mark jotted down.

_“Seoul, June 25 st 2015”_, the letter had started.

_“Hi silly,_

_What date is it today in your time? My guess it is some time in 2016, is it not?”_ _It is_ , she confirmed. _“Well, if it is, I can understand. I know how impatient and over-excited you are at times. Don’t ask why; you are me, of course I know.”_

 

She looked down at the letter, eyes searching for the sender’s sign at the bottom of the page, ‘Son Seungwan’, and had that name crafted in her brain once more, in case her head tried to do anything funny and decided to erase even that.

_“Anyway, if it’s actually February 21 st, 2023 in the present time, then I congratulate you. Hi, 30-year-old self, we’ve finally met. I do trust you enough, present self, because I am you; I know I can be as patient as waiting for eight years to open this letter. And since I do, I’m going to talk with you being a fully grown 30-year-old woman taken into consideration.”_

 

It was not. It was January 3rd, 2016 that day. And that made she chuckled to herself. She must have been very impatient most of the time that her past self who wrote the letter had guessed it right. So much for a time capsule.

 

The letter then continued with Seungwan asking about many things, from how she had been in the past eight years, whether she still lived in the same old apartment or actually had moved back to Canada, to who she was dating at the moment. That part brought a frown to her forehead.

_“Did Joohyun ever come back?”_ the letter wondered aloud, doubling Seungwan’s confusion. _“She said she would, you know?”_

 

Who was Joohyun? Seungwan could not stop herself from repeating that other name to herself ever since it was first mentioned.

_“If you still live in the apartment and—I bet—still have that box on the second drawer from top in the kitchen, retrieve it now. Have you? Good, now **burn** it.”_

 

The word ‘burn’ was a lot thicker compared to other words, as though she had written it multiple times for emphasis. Seungwan stared at that sentence a little longer than necessary, wondering to herself what on earth she had kept in the box that she hated it so much while writing the letter. Her best guess was it was something related to this Joohyun girl, who apparently used to be her girlfriend but broke up before the letter was written.

 

For some odd reasons, Seungwan felt hurt. How bad had the breakup been that she thought, even after years, her future self would still be hurt by the mere mention of it?

 

Who was Joohyun?

 

\--

 

Her apartment was located in the heart of Seoul, just a few blocks away from the main road of Gangnam District, the second door left to an elevator to the fifth floor of a huge, luxurious-looking apartment, or so the letter had said. Seungwan mentally facepalmed at her old self for noting down the address ever so detailed; it was as though she was very certain the 30-year-old Seungwan would have moved out she needed a memoir of the old apartment.

 

A woman at the lobby smiled at her while handing the apartment key. It was friendly, yet Seungwan could sense the caution in her voice when the woman asked, “Here to pick up some things?”

 

Seungwan gave a vague nod in her direction while murmuring a ‘thank you’. She was not sure herself what she was doing there in the first place. For the much hated box she mentioned in her letter? For an attempt to recover her memory, believing she could remember something if she was at a familiar place? For... Seungwan let out a sigh, hating how her chest felt heavier at the mere thought of it.

 

For Joohyun?

_“‘I want to learn to live in the world after knowing you without you in it,’ she said,”_ her brain repeated that sentence, voice reciting it with so much mockery she did not know she could muster. _“Can you believe it? She wanted a break, my friend. Joohyun, the love of my life, the only person I ever dreamed of waking up to every morning, wanted to know how it felt like to live in a world without me in it.”_

 

What was the odd that Joohyun actually came back in the span of six months that Seungwan had been gone? That one question hit her hard, stopping her movement midair, hand stiffened, losing its strength to turn the key open. What if it was a break, break? What if Joohyun had never come back like she said she would?

 

The cold and empty hospital room she had woken up to engulfed her in that moment, realization hitting her right in the chest, served as a harsh reminder that she had always been alone these past six months. Joohyun had never visited her in the hospital.

 

Joohyun had never come back.

 

\--

 

Somehow, through the mess in her brain—new yet seemingly old memories being registered back in, all the ‘what ifs’ and a prospect of being a permanent lonely and amnesic car crash victim—Seungwan managed to get herself inside her apartment. It was huge—with three bedrooms, one master and two guests, a spacious living room with a grand piano in one corner, and a big kitchen merged with the dining table—and very empty. The domination of white and lack of furniture did not help the sense of emptiness at all.

 

Yet it was very clean. No dusts covering the furniture, no wasted food in the trash can, no vegetables or drinks or whatever inside the fridge. Nothing like the place she had expected to come back to after six months uninhabited. It was as though someone always came to clean up the place at a regular basis.

 

It was too clean, even, Seungwan realized as she made her way to the cabinet, meaning to get the box she talked about. It was not there. And it was not that box alone which was missing, her clothes, shoes, photos... everything was gone. Nothing was left to tell of the person who used to live there. Of who she used to be before the accident.

 

It was as if she never existed.

 

\--

 

It was after three days, a few failed attempts at cooking, and some more failed ones at entertaining herself with music that Seungwan concluded she was not a cook or a pianist to begin with. Or if she was, the subconscious part of her brain forgot. Her only resolves were takeout foods and many remix CDs she had found arranged on a shelf in the living room.

 

The loss of her memory was a blessing as well as it was a curse, Seungwan decided as she made herself listen to one CD containing songs from many different singers. A curse because she could not understand just how on earth her old self could bear to listen to those... _nightmares_ they dared to label a song. Yet it was a blessing because in a sense, she could rewrite that mistake of music taste she used to have. She had found this one gem among the collection, a song called Halo by Beyoncé—another strange name, but a gem was a gem nonetheless.

 

Seungwan got herself a job at a library downtown. The pay was not much, but it was enough to cover her daily needs. Electricity, water, phone bills, it seemed like she did not need to worry about those, and for this one Seungwan had to give credit to her old self. Everything had been paid for another year in advance. So for now, with a small job while trying to regain her memory, Seungwan would survive the next twelve months.

 

On day five, Seungwan had settled to a routine she followed ever religiously. She would wake up at eight, get herself some cereal and a glass of milk for breakfast, then go to the bookstore after a quick shower. Her shift usually lasted for six hours, and often she would have finished reading one book before the shift ended. Then she bought herself diner and went back home, ready to spend the night watching TV and filling up her journal.

 

The journal bit, she decided it was partly because she had never kept one that she had trouble remembering her past. Then again, even if she did have one, she would never know. None she ever found in the empty apartment.

 

Sometimes, in between the sequence, Seungwan wondered if her life was anything like this before the accident and how, if it was, did Joohyun fit in?

 

At what point had Joohyun come to interrupt her life and chosen to stay?

 

\--

 

That routine, however, was interrupted on day seven when she was halfway unlocking the door. For the first time she heard the telephone rang. Seungwan was struggling with her shoes and almost tripped on the carpet, but the ring stopped before she could reach it. The default ‘please leave a message’ voice from the answering machine filled the room, and then a beep away, a soft voice could be heard. A message was being recorded.

 

“Hi, Seungwan. It’s me.”

_Joohyun._

 

Her brain was unstoppable.

 

The sound of that name had already bounced from one side of the empty room in her head to the other, even before she knew if it was _really_ Joohyun. She had spent too many hours wondering about this faceless and voiceless girl that a voice which was not her own was immediately registered as Joohyun’s.

 

She could be wrong, but Seungwan knew she was right.

 

“I was just wondering if you...” The girl on phone paused, her breath audible through the speaker. “I missed you, Seungwan. I _miss_ you.”

_Joohyun_ , her brain called out just as the voice disappeared. The message was recorded and the call ended, leaving Seungwan alone to her thought, more confused than she had ever been since she first woke up on the hospital bed.

 

Yet she was right, and there was no mistaking it.

 

It was Joohyun.

 

She came back.

 

\--

 

One of the perks of being an amnesiac, Seungwan found out, was everything she was not capable of doing could be blamed on her loss of memory. She could not cook? Her brain forgot how to. She could not play the piano? Her brain lost the memory of that skill somewhere in the maze that was her mind. So now that she did not know there were many messages recorded in the answering machine, obviously that was because she did not remember how to operate the thing.

 

That message from Joohyun she had received last night was what made her notice. There were over one hundred of them recorded, the earliest logged back in 2015. There was no phone number recorded, all calls were from private numbers—or rather, _a_ private number, she corrected herself as she went through the list of messages. There was a pattern to these messages, each came around six every night and none was longer than thirty seconds.

 

Seungwan checked the latest message, Joohyun’s, and it was clocked in at six past five for seven seconds long.

 

She knocked her head against the table and scolded herself for being so stupid. Joohyun had been trying to reach her these past six months, and she did not notice because she did not even bother to check the answering machine.

 

These messages were all from Joohyun.

 

\--

 

It was like this maybe, Seungwan decided, the start of Joohyun’s permanent disruption in her life before the breakup.

_“I’m sorry, is it not a good time to talk now?”_ The hesitation in Joohyun’s voice was crystal clear. _“I will call you later then.”_ Three seconds, and the message ended.

 

It must have been like this, Seungwan was convinced. As abrupt as this message was. Leaving just enough presence of hers for Seungwan to miss and hold on to.

 

And Seungwan would, right now, to hold on to the girl once again, telling her to stay because Seungwan was here, back and alive, and Joohyun must stop trying to live in a world without her in it.

 

She would, but couldn’t, because all that was left to her were messages and messages alone.

 

\--

_“It’s become rather cold these days,”_ the girl told her one October evening. _“I wish you were here so you could make some hot chocolate to chase away the cold. God, I miss you, Seungwan. I miss you.”_

 

‘I miss you’ and ‘I’m sorry’ became two constant things she heard in every recorded mail, but never had she heard Joohyun ask her to call back. No mention of a phone number Seungwan could dial to reach her. It was as if Joohyun did not want Seungwan to reach her at all, feeling guilty for the breakup perhaps.

 

And Seungwan didn’t.

 

She would move the machine to the bedside table in her bedroom and listen to one message every night before sleep took control of her body, allowing herself to dream of many different possibilities that could have happened had she been there to answer one of the many missed calls.

 

Yet she did not try to call back.

 

She knew if she asked the phone provider, she might get Joohyun’s number, but she stopped herself from doing that.

 

A part of her believed that if she did so, and tried calling Joohyun, the girl would stop contacting her altogether. It was odd and sounded ridiculous, but Seungwan was under the impression that Joohyun did not know she had been back. That for all Joohyun knew, the apartment was still empty. And she would like to keep it that way just so Joohyun’s call would keep coming.

 

Because it was all she had to keep this blurry image of Joohyun alive. Blurry yet perfect nonetheless, for it was her Joohyun. The Joohyun who her mind knew. The Joohyun from the past who had loved her and still did.

 

Because even when there was nothing else left of her life before the accident, she had these messages.

 

She had Joohyun.

 

\--

 

It was after sixty messages that Seungwan heard it for the first time.

 

She could hear the tears in Joohyun’s cracked voice, and it was the longest ten-second of her life as the line became very quiet, save for a tired exhalation voice and drops of rain in the background. And then she said it, ever quietly Seungwan could have almost mistaken it, voice defeated as though this was the last straw of her strength and she was betting her everything on it,

_“Seungwan, I love you.”_

 

The shortest message of all, yet the most Seungwan had replayed, who for a fleeting moment believed she did lose her hearing she had heard it wrong.

 

She had not.

 

And she responded just as quietly, “I love you, too, Joohyun,” phone hugged close to her body, in that moment imagining how it would feel to have the girl herself in her arms, solid and real, unlike the whisper of love that evaporated into the coldness of her room.

 

\--

 

It was probably her eyes, how they would look oddly slanted after waking up in the morning, leaving an impression of a grumpy and unfriendly woman. Or it was her jaw, her way too square looking jaw—she’d seen it on TV, about standard beauty for Korean woman, and her jaw was just not it. Then again, Seungwan thought Joohyun could not be that shallow, breaking up with her because of those flaws in her appearance.

 

Then what drove them apart?

 

What had gone wrong?

 

\--

 

She should ask.

 

After three weeks spent all by herself, one hundreds and more messages being her only companion, Seungwan decided that she must answer it the next time Joohyun called.

 

However, it’s not that Joohyun had called often. After the one she first heard that day, there were only three new calls, all had not been picked up on purpose, served as the main reason Seungwan arrived at this one conclusion. A part of her was restless because of the possibility of Joohyun’s calls stopped coming, afraid that the next phone call would be the last one.

 

This girl had made herself a permanent occupant there inside her empty memory slots, filling up every corner with bit by bit of herself with every message she had left. Voice responding to the monolog in her head, she had become a voice more familiar to Seungwan than her own. Even without a face Seungwan could portray, this was perfect—the Joohyun inside her head was perfect—and she, a complete stranger to her mind, had made Seungwan long for her presence. For the first time, Seungwan was falling for the stranger—for the thousandth time, the ache in her left chest corrected her.

 

And Seungwan concluded that she must ask. She must pick up the damn call. She must let Joohyun knew that she was there. She must tell Joohyun that she needed to get used to the world with Seungwan in it once more, because Seungwan made no plan to leave ever again.

 

She must tell Joohyun that she loved her.

 

\--

 

The fifth phone call never came.

 

Seungwan waited—she even tried to come back home earlier than usual just so she could receive the call in case Joohyun decided to call earlier—but it never came.

 

For three days straight.

 

Three days of hell.

 

Seungwan was going insane. She was edgy, desperate, worried that something might have happened to Joohyun. Something must have happened, because there was no way Joohyun would stop calling just like that. Joohyun wouldn’t.

 

And Seungwan wondered if this was how Joohyun had felt these past six months every time she called only to be answered by an answering machine, talking to an empty house with a static voice of a machine that would never respond to anything she said, wishing at one point Seungwan’s voice would interrupt her message and talk to her.

 

For that was what Seungwan had been so ready to do. Dear God, she was ready.

 

She should have been ready much earlier than that.

 

\--

 

It happened. The fifth phone call did.

 

And like always, it was unanswered.

 

Yet unlike any time before, it came hours earlier. As though Joohyun had learned about Seungwan’s routine, the call came in while Seungwan was not home, leaving it to the answering machine to pick up.

_“If I remember it right, you set the record time to 2 minutes maximum. So I’m going to make this quick.”_ A sniffle, and Joohyun continued, _“I should’ve said it earlier, but things happened and also didn’t, and I thought to myself that as long as it’s not final, I didn’t have to tell you.”_

 

Seungwan brought a chair and sat herself there in front of the answering machine, the urge to hold Joohyun’s hands overwhelmed her.

_“But it’s final today. It finally is, Seungwan.”_ Another brief pause as Joohyun allowed herself to breathe out—heavily that Seungwan thought her own heart would fall down to the floor any second then, unable to cope with the sadness in Joohyun’s voice.

_“I know you hated me when I left you then, but you have no idea how I hate myself for leaving you like that. With no explanation or anything, because I was confident. I thought it would be just a short break before I came back to you again. And would you forgive me if I said I left because I didn’t want you to see me like this?”_

 

Like _what_?

 

The machine was in her lap, held between white knuckles, and it was all Seungwan could do not to crush it. She hated to hear Joohyun like this, breathless, failing miserably trying to stop herself from crying.

_“I just got back from the hospital today, and it’s definitely my last visit there. After seven months, I would finally stop coming there. Not that I should,”_ Joohyun scoffed, for the first time sounding sarcastic. _“But he’s given up, Seungwan, my doctor. He has. I can see it in his eyes. He can’t save me, and I shouldn’t waste my time.”_

 

The pause that followed lasted longer that, for a second, Seungwan thought Joohyun had hung up. Until Joohyun spoke again, and how Seungwan wished she had actually hung up and that it was nothing but a product of her crazy imagination.

_“I’m sick, Seungwan.”_

 

That confession hung low in the air, heavy and suffocating.

 

A pause, and Seungwan swore she heard Joohyun’s erratic heartbeat through the speaker—or was it her own?

_“I’m—no, I’m dying.”_ The soft chuckle that escaped Joohyun’s lips was broken. The girl was broken. Joohyun was broken—God... Seungwan would do anything, _anything_ , if that would bring her to Joohyun, so she could collect the girl in her arms and protect her and give herself up to bleed instead.

 

Just... just not Joohyun.

 

Seungwan was back, alive and well, and meant to stay. It was not fair that Joohyun was leaving her now. Not when Seungwan had found her again. Not when Seungwan refused to live in a world without Joohyun in it. Not when Joohyun thought that Seungwan still hated her.

 

It was not fair, because Seungwan had not told Joohyun that she loved her.

 

\--

_“I’m dying, Seungwan. And this, you must forgive me for this one. I will stop calling, because I don’t know when my last call would be and I don’t want to leave without a proper goodbye. Unlike the last time.”_

 

\--

 

The procedure she had to go through in order to track the private phone number was longer than Seungwan originally thought, and she cursed herself for not doing it earlier. Though she eventually did, a week later, seven days of torture later, and so she called.

 

“Bae’s speaking,” someone answered, voice foreign to Seungwan’s ear.

 

“May I speak to Joohyun, please?”

 

“Oh.” The man sounded surprised, because of Seungwan’s hoarse voice perhaps. “She’s not here.”

 

“She’s not? But it’s her mobile phone, isn’t it? Is she going somewhere?”

 

“Miss, who am I speaking to if I may ask?”

 

“Seungwan. Son Seung—”

 

There was a very loud gasp coming from the other line, surprising Seungwan. “That’s not possible....”

 

“Wha—is Joohyun going somewhere?”

 

“No, she’s not.”

 

“Well, can I leave a message then? Could you please pass it—apologize, who am I speaking to?”

 

“Her father. I’m Joohyun’s father. And no, you cannot leave a message.”

 

“Beg your pardon, Sir?”

 

“You _cannot_ leave a message because Joohyun wouldn’t be able to receive it. She’s passed away a week ago. And stop pulling a prank on dead people. Son Seungwan died in a car accident last year. You can’t be her. It’s not funny.”

 

\--

_“I’m sorry, Seungwan. For everything. For pushing you away, for not being truthful to you, for shutting you out, for breaking your heart. I know you won’t believe me, but it broke my heart, too. It breaks my heart still.”_

 

\--

 

Seungwan could not believe her ears.

 

Joohyun had passed away. Joohyun had passed away before Seungwan could tell her that she loved her.

 

And she was dead... no, Son Seungwan was dead.

 

And she... who was she?

 

And that letter, how did she have it in the first place?

 

\--

 

The grave took less than one day to find. It was at a public cemetery 50 miles away from Gangnam, a little over the left side of the cemetery, secluded, soil still fresh and new, ‘Bae Joohyun’ crafted on the gravestone, a grave belonging to ‘Son Seungwan’ faithfully accompanying it by its side.

_“Here lies to never leave Seungwan’s side ever again.”_

 

\--

_“And I love you. I love you. I love you. God... Son Seungwan, I love you. I love you with all my heart. I do. I would say it over and over again if that would bring you back to me. Seungwan, I love you. Would you believe me?”_

 

\--

 

She felt sick to the stomach.

 

Because the girl who she loved had passed away. Joohyun who had been her only companion in this strange and empty mind of hers had left her, and would never come back. The name that was more familiar than her own had been engraved on a gravestone and there was no undoing it. Joohyun, Joohyun, Joohyun... she was not coming back.

 

She felt sick to the stomach.

 

Because she was not Seungwan. Seungwan had died. She was not the one Joohyun had held close to her heart. She had never been there. She was not Seungwan. She was not the one Joohyun had loved back dearly. She was not who those messages had been addressed to. She was not Seungwan.

 

She felt sick to the stomach.

 

Because more than her own identity, she wanted this. She wanted Seungwan’s life. She wanted Seungwan’s life with Joohyun in it. She wanted Joohyun. And she wanted to die, because death was the only place she could find Joohyun.

 

She felt sick to the stomach, because she had been living the life of a dead person.

 

\--

_“Goodbye for now, my love. Don’t forget to remember that I love you. I’ll be seeing you soon. Yours always, Bae Joohyun.”_

 

\--------

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos to everyone who could guess our main protagonist's identity.
> 
> Yours always,  
> @midnightshon


End file.
